The Most Popular Posts of 2017

It was a big year here at Lifehacker. Together, we tried to save the bees, got hacked, stared right into the sun, ate gross chain restaurant food, and hid from nuclear bombs. These are our most popular stories from 2017.

This is advice I hope you never need but should know anyway. A nuclear attack is everybody’s worst nightmare, and the immediate aftermath is just as bad, if not worse, than the explosion itself. Here’s what you should do if you survive the initial blast.

Bee populations are in decline, and Cheerios wants to help. So far, so good. But they are sending free packets of wildflower seeds to people all over the country—and some of the flowers included are invasive species that, in some areas, you should probably not plant.

When touring different preschools for my daughter, I visited one where I got to observe the kids playing on the playground. While climbing the ladder on the slide, a little boy accidentally stepped on a little girl’s finger, and she started crying. What happened next left me astounded.

Last week a friend of mine tried to print his boarding pass for a return trip home from San Francisco and ran into trouble. No matter how many times he reloaded Delta’s site or tried checking in on his phone, he kept getting a message that he wouldn’t be able to print his boarding pass. At the time we attributed it to a weird fluke, but when he arrived at the airport he found out why: He’d been selected for a Secondary Security Screening. That’s why his boarding pass wasn’t able to be printed, and when he actually got it the pass was emblazoned with an “SSSS” across it.

Since its release, the $35 Raspberry Pi mini-computer has been hailed as the perfect all-in-one retro game console. Now, it’s easier to do than ever, and it doesn’t take any Linux knowledge whatsoever. Here’s how to make your own retro game console in under 10 minutes.

There are a number of nefarious activities to watch out for when your Social Security number has been compromised. With the recent Equifax data breach, you might be wondering how to tell if a thief is using your stolen information.

I was in middle school the last time a major solar eclipse passed over my hometown. Some teachers supplied us with glasses and others helped us build viewers from cereal boxes, and we went outside for the big moment. It was okay, I guess. But when I got home, my mother told me how she saw the eclipse.

When you’re suffering through a long flight in cramped seats the last thing you probably want is to be dressed to the nines, but skipping out on those pajama pants and tank tops does have its advantages. You might even get a better seat.

Even if you’ve got a major soft spot for the Olive Garden, no one goes to chain restaurants expecting a five-star dining experience. (And at this point you should expect things like frozen entrees and pre-made bags of soup as par for the course.) But the uniformity can also be comforting, and with a standardized menu, one might reasonably expect standardized health and food safety procedures, as well. And to some extent, that’s true—this Reddit thread about what to avoid at major chain restaurants (according to their employees) is less horrifying than one might guess.